My Mind Has Wandered...

Super weird political season: Even Danny Elfman is weighing in. Now there is nothing particularly impressive or interesting about a celebrity endorsing Sen. Obama while simultaneously decrying, stridently, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin. But this is Danny Elfman. And I love me some Danny Elfman -- I puy my infant daughter to sleep by singing Oingo Boingo's It Only Makes Me Laugh.

Starting his comments with a reference to departing this country if the election goes one way is unfortunate. I struggle to understand the logic that underlies the threat of flight... but that's not important. The hammer to tank metaphor, on the other hand, resonates. It's why we'll be in West Virginia this weekend. Just a few more hammer blows and well, we shall see...

In any event, while on the Green Line on the way home, I was thinking about Elfman's piece and West Virginia and remembered that I had half-written a post many months ago that I never finished.

So let me reminisce over you...

I've had my love of sports and sporting events reaffirmed over the last few weeks and never more so than yesterday. Packed in the upper deck of Verizon, I had my first opportunity to take in the pagaentry of the NCAA tournament yesterday. And that included Belmont's remarkable run against Duke. Much has been written about the game and I would be unable to add much to the reactions and analysis that have already spilled out over the web. Witnessing the Mountaineer faithful throw their full (and berzerkerish) support behind a christian school from Nashville was a privilege. Watching, over an hour later, the fans at the stadium show their appreciation with raucous applause when Coach Byrd appeared again to catch some of the West Virginia-Arizona game was a treat.

However, what happened after the standing ovation for Belmont's players once they left the floor, after things calmed down a bit and the Mountaineers and Wildcats came out for shootarounds, will probably stay with me just as long as the feelings inspired by seeing the Bruins go toe to toe with the Blue Devils for a full forty minutes. Unfortunately, while the latter experience was largely shared by all but the Duke partisans in the stands, the other spectacle that will stay with me will probably have meaning only for me.

Anyone who's familiar with the University of Arizona is familiar with the school band's unique performance material. I, however, was not. And so for the first two minutes of the band's rendition of Oingo Boingo's Insanity, I was dumbfounded; my ears had to be deceiving me. A university's band was playing a song with the following lyrics:

Christian nation, make us alright
Put us through the filter and make us pure and white
My mind has wandered from the flock you see
And the flock has wandered away from me
Let's talk of family values while we sit and watch the slaughter
Hypothetical abortions on imaginary daughters
The white folks think they're at the top ask any proud white male
A million years of evolution, we get Danny Quayle?

And they were playing Insanity before a game with West Virginia in the NCAA Tournament?

It is a great song and beautifully played by the Wildcats' band. It is a particularly nice thing to hear in a basketball stadium (in the Verizon Center) as an unexpected break from the silliness of the tournament.


And the alcoholic bastard waved his finger at me
His voice was filled with evangelical glee
Sipping down his gin and tonics
While preaching about the evils of narcotics
And the evils of sex, and the wages of sin
While he mentally fondles his next of kin
My mind has wandered from the flock you see
And the flock has wandered away from me
And he waved his hypnotizing finger at me